This invention relates to an unmanned armored minesweeping vehicle, particularly for clearing anti-tank mines.
For sweeping mines a number of various processes are known which, as a rule, are based on the sequential tasks of "searching", "localizing", "marking" and "destroying/clearing". Thus, according to German Offenlegungsschrift (application published without examination) 42 42 541, a mine-contaminated region is searched with an unmanned armored vehicle and the data obtained by sensors are transmitted to a mother vehicle for evaluating and mapping the region.
It is a disadvantage of vehicles of the above-outlined type that, among others, up to the clearing of the mines the entire procedure is extremely time-consuming. Further, long-range mines, that is, mines which may be triggered by a combat vehicle even from a large distance or, in general, externally of its path of travel, cannot be detected and destroyed by conventional minesweepers of the above-outlined type.
German Offenlegungsschrift 34 24 231 discloses a manned special armored vehicle which, for protecting it from mines, carries magnetic coils that generate a characteristic magnetic field for triggering mines that are situated externally of the vehicle outline.
It is a disadvantage of such vehicles that the mines which are equipped with different igniters (detonators) explode and disable the vehicles as they pass over them. Long-range mines too, cannot be detected and destroyed.
German Offenlegungsschrift 38 26 731 discloses a remote-controlled minesweeping vehicle which detonates previously located and marked mines. In such a procedure, the mine is picked up by a tubular body and thereafter detonated so that the fragments may fly only in a vertical direction.